Nomad Girl: My Adventures with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, John Lee Hooker, the Dalai Lama and More

By Niema Ash

Since childhood Niema Ash craved adventure. This craving launched her on a life journey that embraced Morocco and Tibet, to meeting the Dalai Lama, and to connecting with performers, such as Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and John Lee Hooker, before they were recognised as legends. Nomad Girl is her account of this remarkable story.
Described as ‘one of the most interesting people I have ever met’ by Chicken Soup for the Soul author, Jack Canfield, Ash looks back to her teenage years when she met her first husband, South African musician, Shimon Ash, on a trip to Israel. Together they set off on a hitch-hiking adventure through East Africa, which was cut short when Niema discovered she was pregnant. Many might have accepted pregnancy as a call to settle down into conventional domesticity. But not Niema Ash.
Moving to her home city of Montreal, the couple opened The Finjan – a coffee house and folk and blues music club that came to embody the beating heart of the new, emerging culture of the sixties. Most of the musicians who performed at the Finjan stayed at Niema’s home to save on expenses. And it was there, in her kitchen, talking into the wee hours, that she got to know them. “A few became lifelong friends, a few became lovers and a few became famous.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Release date: Jun 28, 2020
• ISBN: 9781838596071

Book preview

By the same author

Touching Tibet

Travels with My Daughter

Travels With Loreena McKennitt

Connecting Dors

Copyright © 2020 Niema Ash

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a memoir based on real events. Only two names have been changed to protect the privacy of the individuals.

Matador

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ISBN 978 1838596 071

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Matador is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd

For Shimon Ash

and

Ronit Corry

Contents

The Party

In the Beginning

The Birth

Motherhood

The Finjan – the Long-Stay Oasis

Opening Night

Phase Two

Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee

The Musicians

Bob Dylan

Cedric Smith and Lucy in the Sky

Casey Anderson

Amora’s Game

Josh White and John Lee Hooker

Jesse Winchester

The Healing of Leonard Cohen

The Man Who Wouldn’t Talk

Victoria

The Prince

An Oasis without Shelter and without Fruit

The Gnaoua Musicians

Tibet – Oasis of My Dreams

The Sky Burial

Tashi

The Mani Stone

‘The Brothers’ – A Tibetan Tale

Meeting The Dalai Lama

The Bee Gees

Diana Dors and Jason

Addy and the Desert

Acknowledgements

Part One

The Finjan

1

The Party

My phone said 3.15 a.m. Everyone had left and I was putting the finishing touches to the clearing up. I hate waking to a mess – wine stains, sticky plates, soggy napkins. Better to clean up while still in the glow of party mode than in the harsh light of sobriety. Not that I had been drinking much. Actually, I had hardly been drinking at all, but I felt intoxicated – delightfully light-headed from all the laughing.

It had been one of those special nights when laughter just happens and becomes infectious. The party had been in its mellow moments. The wine bottles were almost empty. Only a few carrot and celery sticks remained from the bowls of crudités, the Japanese hot and cold delicacies were no more, the small pots of crème brulee were licked clean and the candles were burning low. We were laying back among the cushions in aftermath content when Irina, who had been sprawled on the living room floor, suddenly stood up, turned off the music and began enacting her latest adventure. With Russian passion enhanced by vignettes of mime, the exuberant fling of waist-length hair and the odd pelvic thrust, she began demonstrating how she had been belly-dancing on a table in Ramsgate’s Belgian Bar, in protest at the substandard belly-dancing being performed on stage. She would show those excuse-for-belly-dancers what belly dancing was all about. But the excuse-for-belly-dancers were in no mood to be upstaged by a belly-dancer fundamentalist, and called the manager. The manager asked her to get off the table. When she refused, he called the police. By now we were hanging on every word.

The police made no pretence at niceties. One of the officers grabbed Irina’s arm, not only pulling her off the table but gruffly escorting her out the door. Irina was scandalized. She was accustomed to only the most respectful, even adoring treatment from the male sex. Struggling to free herself and in a voice riddled with scorn she said, ‘Sure, go ahead, push me around. That’s what guys with small dicks do.’

The police were not amused. And, in the line of duty, had hardened their hearts, if not any other organ, undersized or otherwise, against the effects of chestnut hair with red gold flecks and astonishing sapphire eyes. Irina was handcuffed, bundled into a police van and taken to the nearest jail. There, she was locked into a police cell and handed over to a female officer to be strip-searched.

‘Down to your underwear,’ the officer instructed, handing Irina a prison uniform.

But Irina wasn’t wearing underwear. And no way was she going to put on prison clothes.

She refused to undress. The officer, realizing she was no match for a Russian refusnick called for help. All hell broke loose as two policewomen wrestled Irina to the ground while a third forcibly removed her red gypsy dress and embroidered boots. Irina became a caged tigress. She kicked, she screamed, she cursed, she shouted obscenities. She created such havoc that several male officers rushed to the scene to prevent meltdown. As they burst into the cell, Irina jumped up, stark naked. Flushed with struggle, her hair wild, her eyes blazing, she raised her arms, spread her legs and thrust her hips forward: ‘There, have a good look!’

We were all spellbound. That is, all except Mark, known intimately as Marky-Mark. Marky-Mark had been around the Irina block one time too many. She could no longer do anything that would faze him. His long-time exposure had created immunity. He was buried in his phone, seriously immersed in cyber space – not a laugh, not a giggle. He was deaf to the suspense, to the humour; blind to Irina’s fascinating rendition. Then, suddenly, he interrupted the story, just like that – no apology, no by-your-leave – and in deadpan tones, said: ‘Did anyone know that the female kangaroo has three vaginas and the male has a two-pronged penis to accommodate her?’

That gem of information was so dazzling and the juxtaposition so off the wall that even Irina, who was in the throes of resisting arrest, abandoned her story – police brutality being unable to compete with three vaginas and a two-pronged penis. Comments from left field followed.

Tamar: ‘A two-pronged penis? Does that mean one vagina gets left out?’

Peter: ‘Perhaps there’s a rotation system, a vagina-in-waiting list.’

Claire: ‘I could do with two vaginas, it would give one a bit of recovery time.’

My stomach ached from laughing.

I was on automatic with the washing-up, conjuring up remnants of the hilarious banter, knowing it wouldn’t be that funny next day.

I jumped when I heard the phone ring putting both Irina’s insurgency and the kangaroo’s sexual prowess on hold. It was after 3 am. Who could be calling at that hour?

It was Ronit. My heart sank. She was aware how late it was in England, eight hours ahead of Santa Barbara. I braced myself for the bad news.

‘Don’t worry, Mum, nothing’s wrong.’ She knew my anxieties. ‘I’m so excited, I just had to tell you even if it meant waking you up. You’ll love this.’

‘Tell me what?’ Curiosity replaced anxiety. What could be so important that it couldn’t wait until morning, I wondered.

‘Dad just phoned. There’s a new CD out called Bob Dylan at the Finjan Club. He said it’s the hottest bootleg around.’

‘Bob Dylan at the Finjan Club!’ The words were like gold. I forgot the party. I forgot the clearing up. I even forgot the kangaroos. Ronit knew what information couldn’t wait until morning.

I was too excited to sleep, and before the sun was up I had ordered a copy of the CD. A few days later, before I was fully awake, the doorbell rang. I opened the door just a crack. ‘Delivery!’ I swung the door open, suddenly entirely awake. Although I instantly knew what it was, I turned the package over and over again, inspecting the label, examining the postage, lingering over the return address. I was holding in my hands a small miracle packaged in brown wrapping paper and ink stained tape, the opportunity to relive a treasured experience resurrected from the distant past. I needed time to be ready for it. And there it was. BOB DYLAN FINJAN CLUB, a recording of that night when Dylan had performed at the Finjan. I listened to it over and over, remembering every detail; how Dylan had looked, how he had played, how the audience had disappointed him, and especially remembering what happened after his performance. For the memory of that night was the kind of memory that shines through a lifetime.

Then I read the liner notes. There was something about the Finjan, a little about my former partner Shimon, even a mention of me. However, it was obvious that whoever wrote the notes had never been to the Finjan. And it suddenly occurred to me: I had not only been there, the Finjan was a fundamental part of my coming of age, even part of my DNA. Finjan memories were so indelibly inscribed on my psyche I conjured them up even when I didn’t try. They had no regard for space or time because they lived within me and were as vivid now in London, as they were all those years ago in Montreal. And, after all, I was a writer. Why didn’t I write about the Finjan days, about the musicians, about my experiences with them? And so it was.

2

In the Beginning

It all began in the sixties, ‘the decade that wanted to change the world’ – and it did: a time of exuberant happenings, of overflowing optimism; a time when the dams of convention were beginning to open and the changing times flooding in, defiant, liberating, a time when bras were discarded and draft cards burned; when girls wore flowers in their hair and, with sweet smiles, offered them to soldiers to adorn their guns; a time of overt sensuality, when males had hair you could run your fingers through; when clothes were unconstrained, with tiny waists and tight skirts giving way to long flowing dresses, collars and ties to colourful scarves; a time when women proudly displayed their pregnant bellies and men were allowed to cry; a time when ‘swords were beaten into ploughshares and spears into pruning hooks,’ when peace was the question and love the answer; when songs proclaimed: ‘We ain’t going to study war no more’ and ‘Love is all you ever need.’

It was my time.

It was in the cradle of this time that the Finjan was born. It happened almost by chance. I had just returned to Montreal with my partner Shimon, because I was seriously pregnant – another chance happening – and we needed somewhere to have the baby. We had met in Israel and embarked on a hitchhiking adventure through east Africa to South Africa, Shimon’s birthplace, a prelude to launching ourselves into the wonder of travelling the world, which had been my driving passion for as long as I could remember.

The question ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ troubled my childhood. I had no answer. The suggestions on offer – nurse, teacher, hairdresser – were firmly ruled out. They lit no spark in an imagination nourished on the excitement of the yellow brick road and the adventures of Peter Pan.

Then, when I was about eight, I read a story about a nomad boy who lived in the desert. He lived in a place called an oasis and had many wonderful adventures. His life was filled with adventure and magic, because he didn’t have to stay in just the one oasis but moved from oasis to oasis. Each oasis was different and exciting and when he got tired of one, he just moved on to another and made new friends and had new adventures. Discovering that nomad boy, that story, was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Suddenly I had the answer. I would be a nomad girl. I would stay in one place until the adventure ran out and then go to a new place where another adventure would begin.

I began to dream about being a nomad girl. I knew there were many requirements that were unavailable to me, like a desert and an oasis, but that didn’t deter me. Over time the story faded but the dream remained and acquired more definition, as I grew older. By the time I was a teenager, I had worked out the perplexing knots in my dream. The world would be my desert. I would travel the world and wherever I stayed would be my oasis. And suddenly the dream unfolded like a map, laying out before me a vision of my life. And so it was.

***

Since early adolescence maps had been my pin-ups. Maps of the world papered my walls: they were an endless fascination, a magnet for my fantasies. I wanted to know the world. Whereas my friends were intrigued by names like Elvis Presley, James Dean, Marlon Brando, I was intrigued by names like Tanganyika, Kalahari, Botswana, Swaziland, Mozambique; names I caressed on a large global lamp that glowed in the dark, adding to their seductive power. I knew that one day I would see with my eyes the places I had touched with my fingers. And when that day finally arrived, I was ready for it.

Actually, by then several appetizers had already whetted my appetite for travel. When I was fifteen I travelled from Montreal, where I was born and grew up, to New York with a friend and had a wonderfully exciting time. And, at sixteen two friends and I bussed and hitchhiked across the US into Mexico, a difficult journey at times, but one filled with adventure.

In Mexico we had one of those travel experiences that make it all worthwhile. Through cheekiness and outrageous fabrication, we got to meet the famous Mexican artist Diego Rivera. Diego Rivera was not only one of my favourite artists, but I admired the revolutionary principals he stood for. I had read ‘I Paint What I See’, the poem about Rivera written by E. W. White, and become a devotee. Seeing a Diego Rivera mural was one of my main Mexican ambitions.

When we finally got to Mexico City, the first thing I did was to locate one of his most famous murals and we trudged through the streets of the city, frequently losing our way, to see it. However, to my fierce disappointment, the building housing the mural was closed because the master himself was repairing it. It was not only closed, it was cordoned off, with guards standing at the entrance to prevent the people gathered outside from entering. But I was determined to see the mural, and knowing that Diego Rivera was within reach, even more determined to see him.

My father’s motto was, ‘always be prepared for the best’ and he had instilled in me the idea that if you want something enough, just go for it. And I went for it. Having read somewhere that Diego Rivera was a friend of Henry Ford and had painted a mural for him in Detroit, I wrote a note addressed to the artist, saying I was from Detroit and knew Mr Ford, and that Henry had told me so much about this particular mural that I had made a special trip to see it.

I dispatched the note with a reluctant guard who was loath to disturb the master and required both threats and cajoling to do so. My friends stuck by me although not entirely happy with my tactics. Meanwhile a group of people had gathered around us, curious about this somewhat dishevelled trio, dressed in flamboyant colours, and even more curious about my rather lively discussion with the guards, and we waited nervously, dreading imminent public humiliation. However, instead of exposing us as frauds, Diego Rivera stopped work on the mural and invited us in. The doors to heaven had opened.

Rivera made us feel instantly at ease with his good humour and easy laughter. When we confessed our deception, instead of being annoyed, he laughed a large, belly laugh, slapping his thigh in delight, as though in praise of our ploy. I remember feeling so comfortable with him that I cheekily asked how an ardent communist like himself got to be friends with an arch capitalist like Henry Ford.

‘It’s for insurance,’ he shrugged. ‘When the revolution comes he wants to have a friend on our side, in case we win. And in case we lose, it’s good to have a friend on the other side. No?’ His ample face crumpled into smiles.

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

Usually not one for good sense, I somehow had the good sense to leave while we were ahead, even though I longed to stay, and he had offered tea. He hugged us goodbye with kisses on both cheeks.

That incredible experience with Diego Rivera fortified my nomad aspirations, and the travel plan I later made with Shimon cemented it.

***

The plan which I had enthusiastically conceived about three years after the Mexican adventure, had been to begin our African journey by flying from Tel Aviv to Nairobi, where we would visit his sister and her family before hitchhiking to Johannesburg. From there we would travel the world, from oasis to oasis, working whenever we ran out of money, basking in adventure and moving on when the adventure ran out. Shimon was far less enthusiastic about the long-term aspect of the plan, but if he was able bring his guitar he could live with it

This plan had significant advantages. We would not only be able to spend time with Shimon’s family – he had six older sisters: two in Nairobi, four in Johannesburg – but earn money to fund onward travels. Shimon’s parents had come from Eastern Europe early in the 20th century, to escape the horrors of growing anti-Semitism. Hoping to go to the US, they had somehow ended up in a god forsaken part of South Africa, a semi desert called the Karoo, more hospitable to sheep than to people, in a small town called Willomore, populated by Afrikaner sheep farmers, descendants of the original Dutch settlers. Because they were not English, whom the Afrikaners hated, they were welcomed into the community, learned Afrikaans and became sheep farmers. They had six daughters and two sons, Shimon being the youngest, (he said he had seven mothers) all brought up speaking only Afrikaans. Although the work was hard, and their backgrounds, culture, and religion vastly different, the family enjoyed life with no discrimination, with respect, and even with a modicum of popularity. Shimon’s father who had been a cantor, had a golden voice, and became a soloist in the town’s choir. However, when the daughters were reaching marriageable age, his father moved the family to Johannesburg to enable the girls to learn English and find husbands who were more culturally suitable. Shimon spoke no English until he was eleven years old.

For me, hitchhiking through east Africa would be a major blessing. It would unlock the mystery of places I had only been able to imagine and allow me, however briefly, to enter their domain. However, unlocking the mystery was to result in a series of surprising events, one of which was to change my life.

The fact that there were no roads in most of east Africa – only dirt tracks riddled with potholes – or, for days on end, nowhere to buy food or find a bed, was not something we had taken into consideration. It was not surprising, therefore, that several weeks later, when we reached the civilization of Dodoma, Tanganyika, now Tanzania, we splurged on the luxuries of Hotel Dodoma. These included a bedroom with a four-poster bed, silk sheets and a mosquito net. The contrast with nights cramped in vehicles, on the floor of wooden shacks, under trees or in ditches and gullies, was so intoxicating that I became pregnant. However, that fact did not reveal itself until we reached Johannesburg, six weeks later.

For me, having a baby was an alien concept. Going to Mars was more of a consideration. I wanted only to travel, to experience the universe, to be that nomad girl I had dreamed about for so long. I had begun travelling at age fourteen and by eighteen was already a veteran. Music and dance were the threads that held my life together and travel was its embroidered tapestry. I wanted to be the ultimate wild child, the adventurous nomad girl – happy, young. And a baby meant old.

Travel was my high. I was not interested in drugs or alcohol. Drugs were not in my vocabulary and neither Shimon nor I was into alcohol. Much later when we were in Spain, on the rare occasion we went to a restaurant for dinner, we would leave the bottle of wine that accompanied the meal untouched, even though it was free. This had nothing to do with being pregnant, a condition I was intent on disregarding.

I had never developed a taste for alcohol, which had been a great disappointment to my father. Since the age of 10, he had been preparing me for adulthood by giving me small quantities of hard liquor. ‘So you’ll know how to take a drink when you’re out with a man. You won’t be a sissy,’ he’d say. ‘I want you to know how to handle your liquor.’ My father was known as Pistol Pete, to his friends, although not to my mother, who disliked the name. She called him Jack, the name on his birth certificate, as did close family members. For even though he had cultivated a tough guy image, the family knew him as a gentle loving man. However, years later, shortly after he had passed away, I did find a pistol, with a beautiful pearl handle among his belongings. I adored Pistol Pete but, his world was something I knew little about, except that it didn’t tolerate sissies. I had forced the drink down like taking medicine, because I loved my father and wanted to please him. However, his good intentions had worked in mysterious ways. As an adult I disliked even the smell of anything alcoholic. I hardly ever drank. Unwittingly, I was doing something right for the helpless foetus, thanks to Pistol Pete.

But, like it or not, after the Tanganyika indulgence, I was forced to stay pregnant. Only witch doctors performed abortions in Johannesburg. This meant either abandoning our travel plans, which was akin to killing the thing I loved, the thing I had nurtured since childhood, or ignoring the pregnancy, secretly hoping it would go away so we could carry on. I convinced a reluctant Shimon to adopt the latter option.

In the end, we spent three months in Johannesburg, a longish-stay oasis, working, visiting innumerable relatives and hating apartheid. That is, I was working. I had found a job stuffing envelopes and filing papers, which paid good money but which I couldn’t wait to leave. I could deal with the boredom of the work because I knew it was temporary. But I couldn’t deal with the constant grumble of the other female employees, who spent most of the time complaining about their ‘schwarzes’, their black servants, because that was not temporary. It was too close a brush with apartheid and I loathed it.

While I was working, Shimon was perfecting his guitar playing and learning new songs, which I listened to with increasing admiration. He not only had a beautiful voice – rich and plaintive, inherited from his cantor father – but his guitar playing had escalated from amateur strumming to sophisticated picking and plucking. He had even bought one of those metal things professionals wore on their fingers and also something which looked like a lady’s garter, called a ‘capo’. All very impressive.

However, after three months the oasis had dried up. I could not only hear the road calling, I could hear it howling. By now we had saved enough money, eaten enough dinners and attended enough celebrations. It was time to move on. I had grown fond of Shimon’s family and they of me. Although they considered me somewhat of a weirdo who spoke a foreign language –English, but with a Canadian accent so unlike their Afrikaans twang – and who not only ate the unthinkable – Chinese food – but who did the unthinkable – walked the streets after dark and pursued African music and dance – they forgave me all eccentricities. Word had escaped I was pregnant and everyone knew pregnant women had strange cravings that had to be indulged. I was especially sorry to leave Florrie, the sister we had been staying with, who had been kind and gracious and who didn’t burst out laughing every time I said ‘banana’, or ‘eh?’, but I wasn’t sorry to be leaving Johannesburg and delighted to be heading for the road.

We hitchhiked from Johannesburg to Cape Town. Although the trip was less than a thousand miles, it took us five days. Shimon had wanted to visit his birthplace, Willowmore, in the desolate depths of the Karoo, where hitch hikers were a foreign specie, not to be trusted, and certainly not to be given rides. Although we ended up walking for miles, we found ourselves in the same forbidding landscape. Even the few lifts we got dropped us in the middle of nothing and nowhere.

Although it was summer in most civilized parts of the world, it was winter in the Karoo. We spent several nights sleeping in gullies under bridges to shelter from the bitter wind, sharing the space with tramps who accepted us as one of their own. This wasn’t surprising as we looked like one of their own, only more dishevelled and unkempt, and with strange swellings, the result of wearing all the clothing we possessed to keep from freezing. Our only consolation was that our knapsacks were easier to carry. Willowmore was a great disappointment to Shimon. It was much smaller than he remembered, and much colder. A highway now ran through the town and its few streets were cluttered with antique shops, coffee shops, rooms to let, and tourist paraphernalia. He wanted to leave almost as soon as we arrived so that he could preserve the happy memories of the past without having them destroyed by the reality of the present.

Cape Town somewhat redeemed South Africa. It was a soft city. Not only was it stunning looking but gentler than Johannesburg, which had been riddled with anger, prejudice, hostility and heartless behaviour. Apartheid seemed less entrenched in Cape Town, ‘Whites Only’ signs less evident. Johannesburg had seemed like an ingrown toenail, digging deeper and deeper into itself: self-obsessed, introverted, and shut off from the world. It was not a destination for visitors. Cape Town, on the other hand, being surrounded by the sea, looked out into the world. Ships coming and going brought a variety of visitors, a variety of influences. Besides, Cape Town was warmer.

From Cape Town, we sailed to the Canary Islands because I wanted to hear Flamenco music and see volcanoes. Both Shimon and I were delighted to see the back of South Africa. Apartheid had not been an easy thing to live with. It had spoiled anything good we had experienced. Besides we were booked on a luxury liner, a gift from his family, a wonderful contrast to the rough times on the road and the uncertainty of everything. Even though I loved the adventure of that roughness and uncertainty, I was not averse to a spot of luxury and a dollop of security. A luxury liner was just the ticket.

After several weeks in the Canaries that included an abundance of Flamenco but a dearth of volcanoes, we bought third-class tickets on a small elderly ship going to Malaga. Up to that point I had forgotten I was pregnant. My body had always been a good friend and pregnancy seemed to enhance the friendship. There was nothing to remind me: not sleeping rough, not walking for miles, not eating mainly bread and cheese to save money.